So I'm one of those netflix subscribers that jumped ship. I felt the price increase was more than the service was worth. Netflix picked a very bad time to increase prices, and in particular picked a very very poor way to do it. They could have hiked prices slowly over time, and it would have likely not been enough to really re-evaluate the value I get from them. To raise prices 27% at once was too much to swallow. And worst of all was their assumption that I should automatically be subcribed to their new plans. Good bye, netflix. It was nice knowing you.

No, that's not some cute, obscure Japanese smiley face. It's short hand for zero last year, zero this year. I value my privacy, and if my friends want to know what I'm doing, they can call me up and ask me.

Of course the troubling thought is: Does Slashdot count as a social network?

Mordok,

The idea that these are 'fair lawsuits' that you and the previous poster put forth is nonsense. The article says they are looking for statutory damages. The absolute minimum is $750. Statutory damages are decided by the jury, not by the lawyers; and I know of no jury that has awarded less than $10,000. The same group has put for letters for Far Cry, extorting (via threat of law suit) $1500. Which means we are already at 200x actual damages.

Then we come to the enormous trail of evidence that has to be looked at:

A computer G in the hands of someone with lots of money to be made says address X is downloading file y.

Address X is transmitted to corporation C.

Corporation C says that address belongs to subscriber S.

Subscriber S could be the only person at the keyboard.

That entire trail has to be absolutely perfect. Every program that handled the 'evidence' can be proven never ever to make a mistake, Corporation C must know perfectly that their records are pristine and that no unauthorized persons have access, and that there is absolutely no possibility of any sort of error. There can't be any possibility that anyone could have used S's computer without her knowledge. But most importantly, the person that stands to gain many $10,000s can be trusted never to just add a few extra addresses in there. Hey, if you're going to sue 5,000 people, you might as well just toss in a few hundred more random addresses just for the fun of it and push your profit a little more. It's not like anyone is really caring how the big law firms and movie studios and distribution houses are abusing people here.

From my view point, lawyers and big content have decided that copyright infringement is a new profit center. There is no down side, all you do is grab a few random IP address, send a few thousand demand letters. The ISPs do all the leg work for you for free, and you pick one unlucky loser to actually sue so that the rest of the people that get your extortion letters are scared to tell you 'no'.

The only way to fix this mess is to remove the statutory damages; to limit damages to 10x actual damages or 50x profits made from distribution.

So I'm pretty much convinced that the US patent system is completely borked as far as its 'promote the arts and sciences', at least in the realm of software and business methods. These patents easily lend themselves to patent abuse and Apple, HP, MPEG-LA are some of the worst of bunch. And even if we get some decent patent reform, previously filed patents are still going to cause head-aches for a couple of decades. Perhaps the solution is similar to Eminent Domain, only in this case things like the MPEG-LA patent pools are forcibly bought up for a few million dollars and pushed into the public domain. Once the patents are pushed into the public domain, MPEG-LA can use their expertise to develop the new generation of video codecs, instead of claiming 'no one can develop any compressed video software without a license from us.

Another type of engine that really likes to run at a constant speed are gas engines (primarily methane or propane). This sort of equipment would be a huge benefit to the natural gas industry as it would allow variable speed compression while the driving engine runs at a constant speed. Currently you have to put a generator and a variable speed electrical drive in between the driver motor and the compressor.

So I almost lost my breakfast over this one. The amendment doesn't say word one about getting anything useful, only that the spending continue. The legislators in question don't seem to care if the money spent returns anything worthwhile, only that we keep spending. Barf! No wonder everyone hates politicians.

The price of Matlab (minimum of $2000), more like $10K for a decent set of tool boxes. They charge 20% per year for 'maintenance', though thankfully you don't have to buy a maintenance contract to use the software. And for all of this, they can't be bothered to support 64 bit integers? I'd be asking very pointed questions about why not, if I had a license.

As if I didn't have reason enough to despise Apple, they pull this sort of stunt. And yes, I blame Apple completely and without reservation, whole-heartedly convinced of both malice and the intent to cause harm entirely beyond the pale. Apple as a company, and as a way of doing business, deserves only contempt and scorn.

I have to agree, I would never buy products that are hostage of the distributors good will. I own several Ubisoft titles, an in general I thought that they were excellently done. However no matter how good the game is, the current DRM scheme would keep me from buying it. No matter how 'evolved' or 'improved' they try to spin it, I won't be buying games that can't be installed on a stand-alone machine, non-networked computer.